Windows Server 2012 R2

Licensing Datasheet

Product overview Windows Server 2012 R2 captures Microsoft’s

experience of delivering global-scale cloud services

to provide an enterprise-class server and cloud

platform. It lets you optimize performance for your

most important workloads and helps to protect

against service outages with robust recovery options.

It reduces complexity and cost with comprehensive

automation plus storage and networking

virtualization solutions based on industry-standard

hardware. It lets you build, run, and scale applications

that can move between your datacenter and the

cloud, and allows you to provide your users with

flexible remote access from virtually anywhere and

any device while helping to protect corporate

information.

Edition overview The Windows Server 2012 R2 product is streamlined

and simple, making it easy for customers to choose

the edition that is right for their needs.

Datacenter edition for highly-virtualized private

cloud environments.

Standard edition for non-virtualized or lightly

virtualized environments.

Essentials edition for small businesses with up to

25 users running on servers with up to two

processors.

Foundation edition for small businesses with up

to 15 users running on single processor servers.

To learn more about feature differences by product

edition, click here.

Edition Feature

comparison

Licensing

model

Server

Pricing*

Datacenter Unlimited

virtual OSE

All features

Processor +

CAL**

$6,155

Standard Two virtual OSE

All features

Processor +

CAL**

$882

Essentials 2 processor

One OSE

Limited features

Server

25 user limit

$501

Foundation 1 processor

Limited features

Server

15 user limit

OEM Only

OSE: Operating System Environment

*Open No Level (NL) ERP. 2 procs (For specific pricing,

contact your Microsoft reseller. Microsoft does not

determine pricing or payment terms for licenses acquired

through resellers.)

**Client Access Licenses (CALs) are required for every user

or device accessing a server. See the Product Use Rights for

details.

Licensing overview The packaging and licensing structure for Windows

Server 2012 R2 editions remain unchanged.

Datacenter and Standard editions are:

Published August 7, 2013. This document is provided “as-is”. Information and views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site

references, may change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

Differentiated only by virtualization rights –

two virtual instances for Standard edition and

unlimited virtual instances for Datacenter edition.

A consistent processor-based licensing

model that covers up to two physical processors

on a server.

Essentials and Foundation editions are:

Server-based licensing model – Foundation is

for single processor servers and Essentials is for

either one or two processor servers.

CALs not required for access – Foundation

comes with 15 user accounts and Essentials

comes with 25 user accounts.

Client Access License (CAL) Windows Server Standard and Datacenter editions

will continue to require Windows Server CALs for

every user or device accessing a server. (See the

Product Use Rights for exceptions and the

Multiplexing ― Client Access License (CAL)

Requirements white paper for indirect-access

licensing information.)

Some additional or advanced functionality will

continue to require the purchase of an additive CAL.

These are CALs that you need in addition to the

Windows Server CAL to access functionality, such as

Remote Desktop Services or Active Directory Rights

Management Services. (To learn more about these

CALs, see the Base and Additive Client Access

License white paper.)

Note: Windows Server 2012 CALs are used to access

Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

Determining the number of

licenses for Datacenter and

Standard editions Each license covers up to two physical processors on

a single server. The minimum number of licenses

required for each server is determined by the

number of physical processors. For Standard edition

you can add more virtual instances by assigning

additional licenses to the server (two incremental

virtual instances are added per license).

Licensing examples

Datacenter

licenses

required

Standard licenses

required

One 1-processor, non-

virtualized server

1 1

One 4-processor, non-

virtualized server

2 2

One 2-processor server

with three virtual OSEs

1 2

One 2-processor server

with 12 virtual OSEs

1 6

SA Entitlement If you have active Software Assurance coverage on

your current Windows Server licenses at the time of

the Windows Server 2012 R2 General Availability,

you will receive the following transitional license

grants to Windows Server 2012 R2.

Current license Conversion ratio New license(s)

Datacenter 1:1 Datacenter

Standard 1:1 Standard

Essentials 1:1 Essentials

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change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

Planning for Windows

Server 2012 R2 If you are planning to deploy Windows Server 2012

R2, remember:

Select the edition of Windows Server 2012 R2

based on your virtualization needs and edition

features:

o Datacenter edition for highly-virtualized

private clouds.

o Standard edition for lightly or non-virtualized

environments.

o Essentials edition for small businesses with up

to 25 users, running on servers with up to two

processors.

o Foundation edition for small businesses with

up to 15 users buying single processor servers

from OEMs.

Renewing Software Assurance is the best way to

protect investments while gaining access to new

versions, technical assistance and Deployment

Planning Services.

The Microsoft Core Infrastructure Suite (CIS) will

continue to offer the best value for private cloud

and datacenter management pricing.

Core CAL and Enterprise CAL Suites will continue

to be the most cost effective way to purchase

Windows Server CALs to access workloads

running on Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard

and Datacenter editions.

Find out how flexible payments can help you get

the IT you need and stay on budget. Visit

www.microsoft.com/financing for program details

or to learn more contact your Microsoft Solution

Partner directly or call 1-800-936-3500 in the

United States and Canada.

Published August 7, 2013. This document is provided “as-is”. Information and views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site

references, may change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

Appendix

Edition comparison by running

instances Running instances can exist either in a physical

operating system environment (POSE) or a virtual

operating system environment (VOSE).

Edition Running instances

in POSE

Running instances in

VOSE

Datacenter 1 Unlimited

Standard 11 2

Essentials 11 12

Foundation 1 0

1When a customer is running all allowed virtual instances,

the physical instance may only be used to manage and

service the virtual instances. For information about licensing

in virtual environments, see the Microsoft Volume Licensing

Brief: Licensing Microsoft Server Products in Virtual

Environments white paper.

2Essentials is the only edition that can run in the VOSE

Edition comparison by server

roles Here is a summary of key server roles by edition.

Server role Datacenter

Standard Essentials Foundation

AD Certificate

Services 1 1

AD Domain

Services 2 3

AD Federation

Services

Server role Datacenter

Standard Essentials Foundation

AD Lightweight

Directory

Services

AD RMS4

Application

Server

DHCP Server

DNS Server

Fax Server

File Services 5 5

Hyper-V

Network Policy

& Access

Services

Print & Doc

Services

Remote Access 6 6

Remote Desktop

Services7 8 9

UDDI Services

Web Server (IIS)

Windows Deploy

Services

Windows Server

Essentials

Experience

Windows Server

Update Services

(WSUS)

Full

Partial/Limited

Automatically Installed/Configured

Not Available

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change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

AD = Active Directory

RMS = Rights Management Service

DNS = Domain Name System

1Limited to creating Certificate Authorities―there are no other Active Directory

Certificate Services features (Network Device Enrollment Services, Online Responder

Service). See ADCS role documentation on TechNet for more information.

2Must be root of ADDS forest and domain and have all FSMO roles.

3If ADDS role is installed, must be root of forest and domain and have all FSMO roles.

4Requires an additive AD RMS CAL for access.

5The data de-duplication feature is not available.

6Limited to 50 RRAS connections, 10 IAS connections; DirectAccess and VPN are

supported.

7Requires an additive RDS CAL for access, with the exception of using the Remote

Web Access feature of the Essentials edition.

8Only the RD Gateway role service is installed and configured, other RDS role services

including RD Session Host are not supported.

9Limited to 50 Remote Desktop Services connections.

Channels The availability of each edition will vary by channel.

Edition Volume

Licensing OEM Retail SPLA

Datacenter

Standard

Essentials

Foundation

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change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

Frequently Asked Licensing Questions (FAQs)

Q: How is Windows Server 2012 R2 licensed?

A: Windows Server 2012 R2 will continue to have same licensing model as Windows Server 2012 with two editions

available in volume licensing, Standard Edition and Datacenter Edition. Editions are differentiated by virtualization

rights only (two OSEs for Standard; unlimited OSEs for Datacenter). A single license covers up to two physical

processors.

Client Access Licenses (CALs) are required for each user or device accessed. The Windows Server 2012

related CALs provide entitlement to access and use 2012 R2 functionality

Q: What is the difference between Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard edition and Windows Server

2012 R2 Datacenter edition?

A: Both Standard and Datacenter editions provide the same set of features; the differentiator is the number of

Virtual Operating System Environments (VOSE). A Standard edition license entitles up to two VOSEs on up to two

processors (subject to the VOSE use rights outlined in the Product Use Rights document for Volume Licensing or

End User License Agreement for other channels). A Datacenter edition license entitles unlimited number of VOSEs

on up to two processors.

Q: Will the Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 licensing models continue to be

aligned?

A: Yes. Both Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 have similar licensing structures. These include

Two editions, Standard and Datacenter.

Single licenses that cover up to two physical processors.

Editions differentiated by virtualization rights only (two for Standard; unlimited for Datacenter).

(Client Access Licenses (CALs) will continue to be required for access to Windows Server 2012 R2 servers and

management access licenses continue to be required for endpoints being managed by System Center)

Q: What are some of the features available in Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter and Standard

editions?

A: There are a variety of new features in Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter and Standard editions. Here are just

a few examples:

Enterprise-class virtual machine density, performance and mobility with best-in-class performance and

scale for Microsoft workloads

High-performance file-based storage on cost-effective, industry-standard hardware with inbox storage

virtualization and tiering

Highly available, in-box hybrid networking for bridging physical and virtual networks in a multi-tenant

environment and across premises

Protection and recovery of assets for all your workloads with simple and affordable disaster recovery

options

Flexible remote access to corporate resources from virtually anywhere and any device while helping to

protect corporate information

Q: How do I determine which Windows Server 2012 R2 edition is right for me?

A: Since there is feature parity between Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard and Datacenter editions, your decision

will be based on your virtualization strategy as virtualization rights are the only differentiator between editions. If

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change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

your strategy calls for a highly virtualized environment, Datacenter edition will provide you with optimum

flexibility since it allows for unlimited virtualization. This edition allows you the elasticity to add and move virtual

OSE’s across Datacenter licensed servers without need to track the virtual OSE count on that server. If you do not

plan on a highly virtualized environment, Standard edition is the right product for your needs. If you purchase

Standard edition today but find you need to expand the virtualization capacity of your licensed server, you can

1. Purchase additional Standard edition licenses and assign them to the same physical server giving you

the rights to run additional instances of Windows Server. The server must have the appropriate

number of licenses assigned to it to ensure coverage of all of the virtual OSE’s that are running at any

given time, or

2. Purchase a Software Assurance Step-up license to Datacenter edition, changing the license to a higher

edition which allows unlimited virtual OSE’s. The underlying license must have Software Assurance in

order to utilize this benefit.

Q: If I have a Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard edition license, how can I increase my virtualization

rights?

A: With the Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard edition licensing model, you can grow your virtualization

environment by either buying a step-up license to Datacenter edition if you have Software Assurance, or by simply

buying additional Standard edition licenses and assigning them to the same physical server. The server must have

the appropriate number of licenses assigned to it to ensure coverage of all of the virtual OSE’s that are running at

any given time. For example, if you have a 2-processor server and want to run a total of 4 VOSEs, you can

purchase two Standard edition licenses and assign them to the same server. Additional examples are shown in the

table below.

# of Standard edition licenses

on a single server

Total number of VOSEs

1 2

2 4

3 6

4 8

Q: How do I calculate the number of licenses I need for a server?

A: The number of licenses you will need depends on the number of physical processors on the server and the

number of server instances that you will be running. (This only applies for Standard edition because Datacenter

edition allows for unlimited VOSEs.) The larger of these two numbers determines the number of total licenses

required.

First determine the number of physical processor licenses

Each license covers up to two physical processors, so to determine the number of licenses needed to fully license

a physical server, simply count the number of physical processors in the server, divide that number by two and

that tells you the number of licenses that will be needed. (Note: number of cores on the physical processor are

irrelevant).

Here are some examples:

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change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

2-processor server: 2 physical processors / 2 (number of processors covered by a license) equals 1. You

will need one license to cover a 2-processor server.

4-processor server: 4 physical processors / 2 (number of processors covered by a license) equals 2. You

will need two licenses to cover a 4-processor server.

8-processor server: 8 physical processors / 2 (number of processors covered by a license) equals 4. You

will need four licenses to cover an 8-processor server.

Secondly, determine the number of virtual instances running

You can either count the number of VOSEs that are running and determine number of Standard Edition licenses (1

license covers up to 2 VOSEs) or purchase Datacenter which enables unlimited VOSEs on the server.

Each Standard edition license provides you with the rights to run up to two VOSEs, so to determine the number of

Windows Server Standard edition licenses you need, count the total number of total VOSEs that you will run on

the server; divide that number by two, and round up to the nearest whole number.

Once the number of licenses needed to cover physical processors and/or VOSEs is determined, the higher of

those two numbers represents the total number of licenses required. Please remember that the server must have

the appropriate number of licenses assigned to it to ensure coverage of all of the virtual OSE’s that are running at

any given time

For example, if you are running 3 virtual machines (VOSEs) on a 2-processor server, you will require 2 licenses to

cover the 3 virtual machine.

If you assign 2 Standard edition licenses to a single server, you will be able to run a total of 4 VOSEs on that

server. If you add additional Standard edition licenses to that server the number of allowed VOSEs on that

particular server will increase by two for a total of six VOSEs on that server.

Q: Can I use one Standard license to cover a 1-processor server?

A: Yes. The Standard edition license will allow you to license up to two physical processors on a single server;

however it does not require that the server has two physical processors.

Q: Can I split my Windows Server 2012 R2 license across multiple servers?

A: No. Each license can only be assigned to a single physical server.

Q: Can I assign a Windows Server 2012 R2 license to a virtual machine?

A: No. A license is assigned to the physical server. Each license will cover up to two physical processors. After

assigning the license(s) to a physical server, you now have the rights to use the VOSE on that server.

Q: Can I mix Datacenter and Standard licenses on the same server?

A: No. All of the processors on a given server must be licensed with the same version and edition. You can run

different editions or older versions of Windows Server software as guests within VOSEs, but you are not allowed to

assign multiple licenses of different versions or editions to the same physical server to license the processors on

the server.

Q: Can I attach another license of a different version or edition of Windows Server to increase my

virtualization rights?

A: Yes, you can assign additional Windows Server licenses to a server to increase your virtualization rights.

However the newly assigned licenses will need to adhere to their associated licensing rules. For example, if you

have an old Windows Server Enterprise edition (no longer available) license on a four processor server and want to

attach Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard edition licenses to increase your virtualization rights, you will need to

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change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

ensure that all processors on that server are licensed with Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard edition license as

well, which will require a total of two Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard licenses (as each license covers up to two

processors).

Q: If I want to use the software from an earlier Windows Server version or edition, what are my

options?

A: If you have Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter edition you will have the right to downgrade software bits to

any prior version or lower edition. If you have Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard edition, you will have the right to

downgrade the software to use any prior version of Enterprise, Standard or Essentials editions.

The ability to downgrade does not change the licensing or support terms in which you can use the product; the

purchased product (Windows Server 2012 R2) rights apply. This means that the license will continue to cover two

physical processors and the virtualization rights do not change. In addition, the Client Access License (CAL)

corresponding to the purchased version will apply, as an exception; if you are running a previous version of one of

the eligible downgrades you can use the corresponding CAL version if one exists.

Here are a few examples.

Purchased License Downgraded version

or edition

Bit rights that apply Licensing rights

that apply

Datacenter 2012 R2 Datacenter 2008 Datacenter 2008 Datacenter 2012 R21

Standard 2012 R2 Enterprise 2008 R2 Enterprise 2008 R2 Standard 2012 R21,2

Standard 2012 R2 Standard 2008 Standard 2008 Standard 2012 R21,2

Standard 2012 R2 Essentials 2012 Essentials 2012 Standard 2012 R21,2

1 The license will cover up to two processors.

2 The license entitles up to two virtual machines.

Q: If I have Software Assurance in place at the time that Windows Server 2012 R2 is generally

available, when will my grant be reflected in my licensing records?

A: Yes. You will see your grant in the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) in addition to immediately being

able to use the new product and own the perpetual rights (based on your underlying license) to the edition of

Windows Server 2012 R2 that you are entitled to receive.

Q: If I have Datacenter edition with Software Assurance when Windows Server 2012 R2 is released,

which edition will I be entitled to use?

A: If you have Software Assurance on Datacenter edition, you will be entitled to Windows Server 2012 R2

Datacenter edition. For every Windows Sever 2012 Datacenter licenses with Software Assurance, you will receive

one Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter edition license.

Q: If I have Standard edition with Software Assurance when Windows Server 2012 R2 is released,

which edition will I be entitled to receive?

A: If you have Software Assurance on Standard edition, you will be entitled to Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard

edition. For every Windows Sever 2012 Standard licenses with Software Assurance, you will receive one Windows

Server 2012 R2 Standard edition license.

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change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

Q: What are my Software Assurance migration rights by Microsoft purchase program?

A: Each Microsoft purchase program has different rules for your Software Assurance migration entitlement at the

end of your enrollment. See the chart below.

Program Software Assurance at time of release

Enterprise Agreement You will receive perpetual rights to the current

(Windows Server 2012 R2) edition. These rights are conditional on you and

your Affiliates continued compliance with the terms of this agreement,

including payment for the Products.

Enterprise Agreement

Subscription

You will be able to use the Windows Server 2012 R2 edition of your license

during your enrollment. At the end of your enrollment you will have the

option to buy out the new Windows Server 2012 R2 product at the buy-out

price on your customer price sheet or based on the price on your reseller’s

channel price sheet, or renew your enrollment at the new Windows Server

2012 R2 annual subscription price.

Enrollment for Education

Solutions – School Enrollment

You will be able to use the Windows Server 2012 R2 edition of your license

during your enrollment. At the end of your enrollment you will be able to

choose to buy out the original Windows Server 2012 product or buy out the

new Windows Server 2012 R2 product at the buy-out price on the published

price list at the time your enrollment expires, provided, you have licensed

Windows Server under one or more Enrollments (including extensions) for at

least 36 full calendar months immediately preceding your enrollment

expiration, or renew your enrollment at the new Windows Server 2012 R2

annual subscription price.

Open Value You will receive rights to the current

(Windows Server 2012 R2) edition. These rights are conditional on you and

your Affiliates continued compliance with the terms of this agreement,

including payment for the Products.

Open Value Subscription You will be able to use the Windows Server 2012 R2 edition of your license

during your enrollment. At the end of your enrollment you will be able to

choose to buy out the original Windows Server 2012 product that was on

your agreement at the original pricelist price, or renew your enrollment at

the new Windows Server 2012 R2 annual subscription price.

Open Value Subscription –

Education Solutions

You will be able to use the Windows Server 2012 R2 edition of your license

during your enrollment. At the end of your enrollment you will be able to

choose to buy out the original Windows Server 2012 product or buy out the

new Windows Server 2012 R2 product at the buy-out price on the published

price list at the time your agreement expires, provided, you have licensed

Windows Server under one or more Agreements (including extensions) for at

least 36 full calendar months immediately preceding your Agreement

expiration or renew your Agreement at the new Windows Server 2012 R2

annual subscription price.

Select/Open You will receive rights to the current

(Windows Server 2012 R2) edition. These rights are conditional on you and

your Affiliates continued compliance with the terms of this agreement,

including payment for the Products.

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change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

Q: How much will Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard and Datacenter editions cost?

A: Pricing levels vary. For your specific pricing, contact your Microsoft reseller. Microsoft does not determine

pricing or payment terms for licenses acquired through resellers.

Windows Server Edition Volume Licensing Open No Level

ERP

Datacenter $6,155

Standard $882

Q: Why is the price of Windows Server Datacenter 2012 R2 changing?

A: Microsoft takes pricing and licensing decisions very seriously. All pricing decisions take into account changing

product value, customer and partner feedback, and market conditions. Windows Server Datacenter edition is

optimized for highly virtualized environments and includes unlimited virtualization rights. This provides flexibility

to add and move virtual OSEs across licensed servers without need to track the virtual OSE counts on your servers.

Over the past few releases, Windows Server has added in a tremendous amount of new features and

enhancements, as well as significant performance and capacity improvements, to support highly-virtualized

datacenter and cloud environments. A few of these examples include:

High scale performance enhancements including support for:

o 320 logical processors on hardware

o 4TB physical memory

o 64 virtual processors per VM

o 1TB memory per VM

o 1,024 active VMs per host

Live migration enhancements including cross-version live migration, live migration compression, and live

migration with RDMA.

The ability to grow or shrink VHDXs with no downtime.

Hyper-V Replica enhancements including tertiary site support and sync intervals as low as 30 seconds.

And much more.

On servers that are not expected to be highly virtualized, Windows Server Standard is optimal, providing two

instances per license, with an ability to assign multiple licenses to a single server to increase the allowed virtual

OSE densities on that server. Keep in mind that servers licensed with Windows Server Standard wil l need to have

the appropriate number of licenses assigned to that server to ensure coverage of all of the virtual OSEs that are

running at any given time.

Q: Which Client Access Licenses (CALs) do I use to access Windows Server 2012 R2?

A: Your Windows Server 2012 Client Access License (CAL) are used to access Windows Server 2012 and Windows

Server 2012 R2. You do not need to have Software Assurance on your Windows Server 2012 CAL in order to use it

to access Windows Server 2012 R2. Windows Server 2012 R2 requires the same CAL version as Windows Server

2012.

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change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

Q: Do I still need a separate CAL to access Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and Active Directory Rights

Management Service (ADRMS)?

A: Yes. The licensing requirements for Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and Active Directory Rights Management

Service (ADRMS) have not changed with Windows Server 2012 R2. Customers are still required to purchase an

ADRMS and/or RDS CAL in addition to a Windows Server CAL to access ADRMS and/or RDS functionality

respectively. For example, to access RDS functionality in Windows Server 2012 R2, you need Windows Server 2012

CALs and Windows Server 2012 RDS CALs along with the server software.

Q: What is the price of running Windows Server 2012 R2 on Windows Azure under “preview” and

“general availability”?

A: During Preview, VOSEs running Windows Server 2012 R2 will be charged at the same rate as those running

Linux. During generally availability, VOSEs running Windows Server 2012 R2 will be charged the same rate as

those running Windows Server 2012.

Q: Can I move Windows Server 2012 R2 licenses and images between Hyper-V and Azure?

A: Windows Server 2012 R2 licenses, just like Windows Server 2012 are not eligible for the License Mobility

through Software Assurance benefit. You can continue to take advantage of the license mobility rights for other

server applications; however Windows Server will continue to be purchased separately from the service provider or

Azure.

Q: What are the System Center license requirements for managing Windows Server 2012 R2 instances

running on Azure?

A: You can use the License Mobility through Software Assurance to assign your System Center 2012 R2 license to

a Windows Server instance running on Azure.

Q: How do I license Windows Server 2012 R2 on Core Infrastructure Suite to run some instances on

Azure?

A: You are not able to run your Core Infrastructure Suite (CIS) Windows Server license in Azure because Windows

Server does not offer mobility right as a standalone license or as a component product within the Core

Infrastructure Suite product purchased.

Q: What are my licensing options for the recovery server as part of disaster recovery planning?

A: Windows Server license is required for your disaster recovery server if:

You are running a failover cluster, all processors and running OSEs must be licensed, including OSEs that

are expected to carry a production load only after the failure of another OSE.

You have a recovery server running a Windows OSE, whether virtual or physical, that is typically on-line (i.e.

not during one of the exception periods below), the OSE must be licensed, even if it is expected to carry a

production load only after the failure of a production server.

If you do not expect to run the disaster recovery server or OSE, licensing the primary server with Software

Assurance may be sufficient as it provides the benefit of Disaster Recovery Rights. The Disaster Recovery Software

Assurance benefit allows the disaster recovery server or OSE to run only during the following exception periods:

For brief periods of disaster recovery testing within one week every 90 days

During a disaster, while the production server being recovered is down

Around the time of a disaster, for a brief period, to assist in the transfer between the primary production

server and the disaster recovery server

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change without notice. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product.

In order to use the software under Disaster Recovery Rights, you must comply with the following terms:

The OSE on the disaster recovery server must not be running at any other times except as above.

The OSE on the disaster recovery server may not be in the same cluster as the production server.

Windows Server license is not required for the disaster recovery server if the following conditions are met:

o The Hyper-V role within Windows Server is used to replicate virtual OSEs from the production

server at a primary site to a disaster recovery server.

o The disaster recovery server may be used only to

run hardware virtualization software, such as Hyper-V,

provide hardware virtualization services,

run software agents to manage the hardware virtualization software,

serve as a destination for replication,

receive replicated virtual OSEs, test failover, and await failover of the virtual OSEs.

run disaster recovery workloads as described above.

o The disaster recovery server may not be used as a production server.

Use of the software in the OSE on the disaster recovery server should comply with the license terms for the

software.

Once the disaster recovery process is complete and the production server is recovered, the OSE on the

disaster recovery server must not be running at any other times except those times allowed here.

Maintain Software Assurance coverage for all CALs, External Connector licenses and Server Management

Licenses under which you access your licensed software running on the disaster recovery server and

manage the OSEs in which that software runs.

Your right to run the backup instances ends when your Software Assurance coverage ends.

In the event of a permanent hardware failure on the primary server and if there is no licensing on the secondary

server, the primary server license can be assigned to a recovery server even within 90 days since the last

reassignment. However, once the license is assigned to the recovery server, the license cannot be reassigned to

another replacement server for 90 days. Please refer to the Product Use Rights document for more details on the

“Early Reassignment Due to Hardware Failure” rule.

WS 2012 R2 - Essentials and Foundation editions

Q: Are there any changes to the licensing model for Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials?

A: Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials will continue to have a license that covers a single server with up to two

physical processors. Is does not require CALs, but is limited to 25 user accounts.

With previous versions of the Windows Server Essentials edition, it was necessary to obtain a hypervisor separately

in order to run as a virtual machine—options included the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server or using Windows Server

Standard edition to run Hyper-V. With Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials, the product licensing terms have been

expanded to enable you to run one operating system instance on the physical server for Hyper-V, plus a second

Operating System Environment on that server in order to run Essentials as a virtual machine. Installation wizards

have also been created to simplify the process of deploying as a virtual machine by automating the steps

necessary to set up and configure the host server environment. This makes it easier than ever before to take

advantage of Hyper-V and its features, such as Live Migration and Hyper-V Replica.

Q: What are some of the features that are now available in Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials?

A: Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials incorporates best-of-breed capabilities to deliver a server environment well

suited for the vast majority of small businesses, enabling customers to:

Protect your data

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Provide secure remote access

Integrate cloud services

Customers can use Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials as a platform to run critical line-of-business applications

and other on-premises workloads. It can also provide an integrated management experience when running cloud-

based applications and services, such as email, collaboration, online backup, and more.

Q: What are the different editions available with Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials?

A: There is only one edition—Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials. It is a flexible offering that provides a platform

for running on-premises or cloud-based workloads.

Q: How much will Windows Server Essentials cost?

A: For your specific pricing, contact your Microsoft reseller. Actual prices may vary. Microsoft does not determine

pricing or payment terms for licenses acquired through resellers.

Edition Volume Licensing Open No Level

Estimated Retail Price

Essentials $501

Foundation OEM only

Q: Are there any licensing changes happening to the Foundation edition as part of Windows Server

2012?

A: There are no changes to the Foundation edition licensing or pricing model. To see the full list of features and

licensing, go to the Foundation Server 2012 website.